


Imprint

by Zoi no miko (zoi_no_miko)



Series: Imprint [1]
Category: Dark City (1998)
Genre: Gang Rape, M/M, Non Consensual, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-16
Updated: 2010-12-16
Packaged: 2017-10-13 16:57:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/139548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zoi_no_miko/pseuds/Zoi%20no%20miko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We needed a key to the human mind, a man to help us conduct our experiments on mankind. A man we could bend to our will. We were certain we had obtained the perfect candidate in the doctor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Imprint

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wilde_Shade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wilde_Shade/gifts).



Despite our Doctor's misgivings, we did not, in the beginning, intend what we did. At first we simply watched the small blue planet, the myriad of life forms that scurried around on its surface and under the waters we abhorred so much. Hundreds, thousands of species living, thriving, flourishing. We envied all of them, as much as our kind could envy. Especially the species at the heart of it all, man. Ruling the planet with reckless abandon, without thought of the consequences, like we once had. Given centuries, perhaps they would become like us.

For now, though, they had something we desperately needed.

Life.

While we slowly withered away, one by one, mankind grew in scores. Mankind, with all its brash selfishness. They were crude to our eyes, almost insulting in the way they turned on even their own kind, the way they had no regard for life. How could they flourish while we suffered? We studied them for decades in vain. At first we watched from afar, studying carefully, filling logs upon logs of observations on individuals, on groups of humans, on everything they did and did not do. They had little organization, each member doing whatever they pleased, often with little regard beyond themselves or their immediate grouping. They hurt each other needlessly, senselessly. Yet they survived.

We debated for years, about humans. We'd already taken their forms, used the bodies of their dead as vessels for our fragile selves, using our advanced mental abilities to all but stop decay, to animate that which was lifeless. Perhaps we secretly hoped it would be the first step to finding the answer we needed. The cure to our impending extinction. But could this crude and unpredictable species really hold the key we were looking for? We took individual beings for closer examination, erasing their memories and sending them back to earth without knowing the wiser. It did not gain us any of the answers we needed to save our species from its pending extinction. We couldn't reproduce like the humans could, of course. Our reproduction had always been asexual, a choice to split one’s physical form in two through a long, painful process. Each of us could trace the path of our severing, all the way up to Mr. Book himself. And so, though apart, we were always together, always one mind. We flourished, at first. We became hundreds, we grew.

There was the occasional mishap, of course. A new, severed being would not be part of the whole or even alive, simply a lifeless shell. It was as much of an impact to us as a failed birth was to a human, but it wasn't a worry, not at first. Then, as years passed, as decades passed, it became a more and more common occurrence, then a majority occurrence. Then one day we realized that we had not successfully reproduced for almost a quarter of a century.

Whether or not Man with his so-called individuality could help us was the subject of a debate that went on for ages. But we were becoming desperate. The final plan that was formulated was simple enough - create a world that we had full control of. A world where we could observe humans under the circumstances of our choosing. A world where we did not have to fight against water or sunlight or chance. Through this, we would determine the secret to a human's individuality, how they could exist and thrive without the same connection to each other as we had.

The next step was to secure an essential key to the human mind. We had tried small experiments with memory before; with our technology it was easy to extract and copy the record of an individual human life from their mind, these things they called “memory”. These experiments had ended in disaster, however. The imprints did not take. The humans went insane, and we were forced to return them to earth with no memory at all. We could not understand the essential building blocks of human memory that would be needed to run our experiments. We would need a subject matter expert to help us, a human that we could control, coerce.

I suppose that, in a way, obtaining our Key was our first large scale test.

This human would have to have a strong mind like we did, be able to withstand any kind of torment. We would have to test them for this to ensure that they could survive the work despite being cut off from the rest of their kind. They must have sufficient strength of character, but still bend to our will. They must understand humanity. We searched to the ends of the earth for the highest experts of the human mind, the people they called scholars, doctors, writers, philosophers, actors. We studied carefully until we were certain we had those with the highest chance of success.

Our first batch all died, one by one. They took the opportunities we gave them to end their own lives. One man agreed to our plan immediately, but that in itself was a failure, and we dispatched him as we had the others. We searched again, looking beyond our original parameters. Humans were very fragile, so perhaps youth would be an advantage. It was difficult to accept that a being with mere decades of existence could have the knowledge we needed, but humans, with their shorter life cycle, seemed to seize hold of whatever they could when they could, to fill their lives with a flurry of knowledge and experience.

This was how we found our doctor.

He was small, for a male member of their species, with pale hair and eyes that were genetically inferior, adjusted by a crude device of shaped glass that humans wore across the bridge of their nose. He was a gamble; the fragile did not normally survive our tests. We paid him little attention at first, leaving him in the simple cell we had created for all our captives, which was bare except for a mattress, a latrine, and a sink with a mirror. The mirror had been smashed by some of our previous captives, who slit their wrists to let their precious blood of life spill out to the floor until it took their existence with it. Some tore up the bed-sheets, hanging themselves from the ceiling beam. Some simply refused to eat even after the initial test of starvation, growing weaker each day until they fell into a coma which we did not see fit to revive them from.

This man, however, showed promise from the beginning. He did not descend into madness, into screaming and railing and crying as some of the others did. He simply explored the cell, inch by inch, searching for a weakness, for a way out. When we finally brought him before the Consensus, weakened and starving, he said nothing, but returned my gaze calmly, waiting for an explanation.

We had adopted one of the more common human languages for our dealings with the humans, a language that he did not speak. I secured his head to the frame as well with a leather strap we had Tuned for this very purpose, holding him immobile as we drove an injection device into his forehead fashioned after the human's own medical syringes. This one contained data only, a key to the English language. He cried out as it pierced his forehead, shuddering, almost convulsing through the imprinting as the data took hold, finally stilling to hang limply from the frame.

"Mister..." I consulted our learning of this man. "Doctor Daniel Poe Schreber, yes? You are here because you have been chosen." I'd gone through the speech over a dozen times at that point, slowly circling the frame we had tied him to, arms and legs outstretched. Vulnerable.

"Chosen," he whispered, and gave a soft, choked laugh, apparently content to wait for me to continue. I unfastened the strap around his forehead, but still he watched me, and behind the fear and resignation in his eyes I could see a careful intelligence that was cataloging each word that I said for deeper examination. It made us immediately hopeful, more so than we had been with any of the others.

"Chosen," I repeated, "To aid us in the preservation of our kind, just as others of your kind will be chosen to carry out our experiments. We have the technology to change a human's identity, but not the knowledge of how to do so. We do not understand your kind, yes? We require an artist such as yourself, one who understands completely the human experience, how memories are stored and work together to form your kind's individuality. You will create the identities for each of our subjects to our specifications, change a man's memory over and over. As such we will discover the key to what makes you human. Do you agree now to help us, doctor?"

A shiver ran through him, and he shook his head. "The like of what you propose has been done.... by humans themselves. This kind of experimentation never... gives the desired result. My grandfather was part of an organization. They claimed superiority. To experiment on other humans. Inhuman, despicable...." Schreber let out a shuddering breath. "I will not act against my kind. But perhaps there is another way... to preserve your kind? What problems do you face? We are a resourceful species. We can help you - "

I waved a hand to cut him off, glancing to two of the others.”Take him to sensory deprivation, yes? He will give in, in time."

In the days that followed I did not think on him. I had other humans to attend to; another part of our mind tracked the progress of each subject. When he was brought before me again, I regarded him with great interest. He had been the only one to suggest alternatives to our demands, and while we were aware that they would do no good, it still seemed as if this kind of thinking would much benefit us. Others had cleaned and dressed him; sensory deprivation was not kind to their species, but we had replenished his nutrients with intravenous treatment, careful to monitor the physical health of our test subjects. He now only wore the soft gray clothes we had provided to all our captives to replace the remnants of their human garb.

Schreber was pale and shaking as they strung him up to the wheel, but took deep breaths, trying obviously to compose himself. Unlike some of the others, his sanity had remained intact through this test, it seemed. I approached him again. "Doctor Schreber. We repeat our earlier request. Consent to aid us in our experiments against your kind, and we will cease this torture. We offer the much more... pleasant alternative, yes?"

For a long moment he just stared at me helplessly, and I began to think that I had been mistaken about his sanity. Then he wet his lips, drawing a soft breath. "What do I call you?"

I stared at him, uncomprehending. "What do you call us, doctor?"

"No. What do I call you? You. Individually. What is your name?"

Names. Tokens of individuality. The others around me dissolved into conversation, shared through the mind and through the clicked language that was our natural form of communication. Names had not been considered, but perhaps this was the first step to humanity? Of course we would have to take individual names. My role in the group made the naming easy, and I pulled myself from the conversation to answer him as the others continued.

"You will call us Mr. Hand."

Pale eyes regarded me with interest from behind the glass lenses we had restored to him when we'd taken him out of sensory deprivation. "Us?"

"This singular representation of us."

He nodded slowly. "You are connected mentally. This is why you wish... to understand individuality. Humans." His language was strangely awkward compared to the subjects we'd taken who spoke English naturally. Perhaps the language imprint had been flawed.

"We are one being," I replied. "We share one memory, one existence. But we can no longer grow. This is why we are dying. This is why humanity is the key to our survival, yes? So we require your cooperation. Your skills."

Schreber gave a soft, helpless laugh. "You ask me to be no better... than the Jew who aids the Nazis ... to secure his own safety. I cannot, I will not aid you in your torture."

"The subjects of our experiments will not be physically harmed. They will have no knowledge of the experiments, yes?"

"What you propose is to... remove the very essence of what we are. Everything we have experienced. Our identity. If you are to do this... it will not be with my assistance."

I watched him for a long moment, and then gave a nod to two of the others. Mr. Wall, came the knowledge. We had settled on names. Mr. Quick. One handed me our first implement, a leather lash fashioned after one of the human's own making. The other spun the frame around so that the man faced away from me, then seized the back of the gray cotton shirt we had given him and pulled, tearing it down the back.

I was not gentle, but I was insistent. Experience had taught us the perfect amount of force that an average human could take for the longest amount of time before unconsciousness, the greatest amount of pain we could inflict. The lash landed first with a crack, leaving a red welt on the man's pale skin, making him cry out in surprise at the lick of pain, body jerking tense. Schreber bit his lip at the subsequent blows, unable to keep silent at the pain but keeping it muffled, his bit lip almost bloody. I stopped when the entire length of his back was striped red; watching him for a long moment as he hung from the frame, body shaking as he gasped for breath. Then I rounded the frame to face him, using the handle of the lash to lift his chin to look up at me. "We will ask you again, doctor. You will assist us, yes?"

"I will not," he gasped, his eyes hard with anger.

"Then we will continue," I replied calmly. "We will use every technique to break you that your kind has developed, yes? We will continue until you give in."

"Then kill me now," he shot back, still breathing hard. "Go ahead. I will not agree to help you."

"Death is only an option at your own hand." I replied, watching him take in the information. "So consider your answer wisely, doctor. Will you assist us?"

"No."

The strength was admirable. There had been three subjects who had given in at this point, unfortunately, three humans that had proved too weak. The rest had soon after taken their own lives. I wondered how this one would turn out. I moved back behind the frame again without another word, lifting the lash to continue my work. It was strange and almost fascinating to watch his reactions as the lash fell again and again with my perfect exactness. I continued even as he begged me to stop, gasping, desperate pleas. I continued until the welts bled, until he sobbed helplessly, hands clenched tight at the rails of the frame, pale and shuddering and broken.

"Take him away," I said to Wall and Quick, and Tuned the lash into nothingness. I watched them unbuckle him from the frame, watched his entire body sag, almost falling to the ground. I watched as they half-dragged him from the Consensus, the bloody welts on his back angry against pale skin. It was very satisfying, we realized as we assessed the situation, to dominate this species so easily - this species that was so weak, so inferior, but yet somehow had what we so badly needed.

We left him alone for forty-eight human hours before dragging him back before the Consensus, stringing him up again to the frame that held him restrained. We hadn't replaced the shirt we'd ruined, and he shivered in the cold we lived in that humans were so unaccustomed to. Though we'd aided a little in the healing of the welts on his back they still stood out red and angry against his skin, rough and ruined. I stood behind him, admiring the look of the scars against his skin. Marks of our dominance, our superiority.

"Doctor Schreber. How nice to see you again, yes? Have you thought of our offer?"

"You need not bother to ask," he replied, voice rough and bitter. "I will not do what you wish. Not now, not ever."

"Shame," I replied, then grabbed a hold of the back of the thin gray trousers he wore, yanking hard until they tore away. Schreber refused to meet my gaze as I circled the frame he was bound to, shivering more in the cool air. I stopped in front of him, regarding him as we thought of our progress with him, how much we'd won. But we couldn't be certain, not yet. He had to be completely broken from his human will.

"What are you waiting for?" He asked finally, angrily. "Get this over with. Do your worst."

"It occurs to us...." I started slowly, reaching out to let my fingertips rest against his cheek, a touch from which he jerked away. "... that perhaps there are better ways to convince you than pain, yes? We have studied your kind for a long time...." I let my fingers trail down over his chest and stomach, thinking that perhaps we should mar it with scars as well at some point. But not now. Now would be a different technique.

I let my fingers trace a line down his cock, feeling him jerk tense at the contact. He tried to pull away from my fingers, jerking against the restraints, biting his ragged bottom lip on a horrified whimper. "Don't!"

"Don't?" I curled my fingers around him, stroking slowly, curious at the human reaction to touch. We'd done this to humans before, of course, studied the process of their reproduction and the many habits and pleasures they took from it. It was curious, this human body. We were completely in control of the bodies we inhabited, the complete opposite of the humans. I continued to stroke him, watching him, the mix of helplessness and shame as he turned his face away from me, and I felt the organ in my hand begin to harden.

"Don't do this." Schreber's voice was ragged, desperate. "Please don't do this."

"Then we will ask you again, yes? Aid us. Agree to the proposal."

"I can't." The reply was shuddering and helpless, almost a sob. "I can't, I can't, oh god...."

"You appear distressed, doctor. While we expected this reaction, it nevertheless fascinates us. We have watched your kind for so long. This is simply a biological process, yes? Stimulation, response. The registering of touch through the nervous system, the firing of neurons. The response of hormones, pheromones. A complex process, correct, but one that has little to do with thought or choice. Your kind is so... embarrassed, so mortified by the process when you perceive that it is outside of your control. Yet it is always out of your conscious control, yes?"

"It is not like that." He seemed to cling to the words even as his body shuddered; as if they were a shield against what I was doing. His voice was raw, desperate. "You know nothing of us if you think that. This is intimate, this is how we connect, how we - love - " He drew a sharp breath as I ran my head over the head of his cock, finding it slick with his body's own preparation.

"How you love, doctor? An interesting answer, but not entirely true. This is reproduction, recreation. And this is power. Dominance. Human males seem content to force this on others regardless of their gender, yes? We do not think this is love."

"God!" Schreber tried to jerk away from me again, eyes wide with fear, yanking hard enough at the bindings on his wrists and ankles that the entire frame shook. "Don't do this! Don't force me - !"

"All you need is to agree and the torment will end," I said, releasing him to circle the frame again, admiring for a moment the red welts on his back. "Do you agree?"

He gave a choked, helpless groan. "No. No, I...." Schreber drew a shuddering breath that caught in a sob. "No."

I didn't say anything to him, simply Tuned the lubricant necessary for his physiology onto the first two fingers of my dark leather gloves and began to work them into his ass, feeling his body tense and shudder, clenching around me. His breath turned to helpless, audible gasps that were almost a sob, but he didn't try to speak, not even when the brush of my fingers stimulated his prostate, making him cry out. The choked gasps continued even after I'd pulled my fingers away, his body shaking, hanging almost limply from the frame.

I tried once more. "Help us and this all ends," I said, but he didn't even react beyond a shuddering, helpless groan. Helpless, but not broken.

The robes I wore like most others of my kind were malleable, controllable, and the human form I inhabited was just as easily manipulated to serve our needs. I grabbed his hips none too gently, holding him in place and dominating him just as another human would do, thrusting my hardened phallus into his body's trembling channel with no care for gentleness. It tore a pained cry from his lips, though I could hear him try to hold back as I thrust up into him again, his hands clenched into fists.

These physical forms we wore did not react like humans did, no longer able to experience the same kind of physical pleasure that they had when they were living humans. But it was easy enough to imitate, to use him as if I gained pleasure from this, bucking up into his trembling body hard and deep, again and again. Doing this, dominating so completely was unexpectedly interesting. Satisfying, to place ourselves in the role of a human aggressor. When his cries became more like sobs I set my mark on him, leaning in to bite hard at his shoulder as I jerked hard into him, willing this form to deposit the same slick biological material that a human male would produce to mark his claim on another, hot and slick inside him, and as I yanked away I watched the creamy liquid ooze from his ass with a strange satisfaction.

"Will you tell me now that this is your so-called love?" I leaned in to hiss against his ear. "This is another tool, another torture. Submit to us and this will end."

The laugh that escaped Schreber's bitten, bloody lips was an almost manic sounding sob. "Go fuck yourself."

I stepped back, motioning to two of the others, who joined me at my command. With a thought I dissolved the restraints around Schreber's wrists and ankles, and he crumpled, the others catching his shoulders before he hit the floor. The newly named Mr. Quick yanked his arms behind his back and into a pair of restraints we Tuned that bound his wrists together, hooked into a chain hanging from the top of the frame that left him barely kneeling on the hard ground, bent over with his arms stretched behind him painfully. He struggled against the position, but Quick knelt behind him before he could get to his feet, pulling Schreber's hips back and taking him as I had, pushing another pained cry from the man's mouth.

Mr. Wall knelt in front of him to complete the torture, pulling back the doctor's head by his hair and forcing his own hardened cock into his mouth. Schreber bit down - hard, it seemed - breaking skin so that the black substance that acted as blood for our recycled host bodies stained his mouth and Wall's cock an oily black. Wall yanked away, and as Schreber sputtered and gagged I bent to strike him hard across the cheek, sending the glass lenses skittering across the floor. Then I Tuned another human device to serve us, a silver ring that I forced into his mouth and behind his teeth, held in place with a leather strap that I fastened around his head and four metal rods that snaked from the ring out over his cheeks. He fought against me, trying to tear himself from my grasp and away from the ring even as Quick fucked him, jarring his body with the force of his thrusts. I'd removed my soiled gloves for a better grasp, my nails tearing at his skin as he struggled, catching hold of one ear until it bled, taking no care for the frailty of his human body. When the ring was in place he sagged helplessly against our restraint with gasping, sobbing breath, sinking down until his face was in danger of being slammed into the cold metal flooring with the force of Mr. Quick's thrusts.

Mr. Wall's body would have to be Tuned when we were finished with this, but for now another took his place, one we hadn't named yet, following our command and thrusting into the human's mouth through the ring in the gag. I looked to Quick. "Ejaculate on him."

That was easy enough to imitate, and it had the desired effect, Schreber's body shuddering and flinching away as the created liquid splattered warm and slick on his back and ass. I gave a directive nod to the one that was fucking his mouth, and we came on the man's face as well, the creamy liquid landing on his lips and cheeks and matting his eyelashes. Two more of us took their places before Schreber could recover, another hardened cock thrusting past the ring even as saliva and ejaculate dripped past the gag and onto the floor while one of us who proved to possess a more well endowed host forced its thick cock up into his ass. This was the key to this human domination, we'd found, the numbers increasing the humiliation and resulting subservience.

I watched them for a time, bodies rutting together frantically, just as base and animalistic as the beasts these humans claimed to better, just as bestial as humans themselves could be. Then I knelt beside them, motioning for them to slow, wiping the ejaculate from Schreber's eyelid with one thumb. I smoothed my fingers over the welts on his back, through the ropes of slick that had landed there, and then curled my fingers around his cock again, now only half hard, beginning to stroke him as the others started to fuck him again. It only took a slight touch of our mental abilities to convince his body to respond, and we thrust ourselves into his mouth even as we pounded into his ass, angling to stimulate human biological response. Schreber's muffled sobs were almost desperate as his organ hardened in my hand under my firm, insistent stimulation, slick with the false ejaculate we'd created to humiliate him. "You continue to fight this even as your body takes pleasure from it. It is useless, just as it is futile to continue to deny us, yes? Think on our offer, Schreber. Give in and the pain will cease, this humiliation will end."

I felt his cock pulse in my grip, and relayed the information to the others through our mind. They pulled back, miming the motion of my hand on their cold, hard organs to ejaculate on him again. Schreber's cry was broken and sobbing around the ring in his mouth even as I continued to stimulate him, tightening my grip a little, moving faster until his body spasmed and completed its cycle, overloading from sensation, his cock spilling over my fingers.

He didn't say anything even when I unbuckled the gag, tugging the metal contraption from behind his teeth and letting it clatter to the floor. When we undid the restraints on his wrists he collapsed as well, crumpled on the floor, shivering as he gasped for breath, broken and silent. We didn't bother to press our demands now. Better to let the torture sink in, we'd learned. We hauled him back to his containment room without bothering to clean him, but left him with the implements to do so, along with sustenance and a new set of human clothes.

When we brought Schreber before us next, he was quiet, dressed and clean, though we had damaged his ear more than we had originally realized, and blood clotted around the jagged wound. We'd brought two other humans to the Consensus along with him, restrained by the cold grip of our hands. We did not bother to restrain him this time. Not yet, in any case.

I stood before him, silent for a long moment as I regarded him, and he trembled, keeping his expression intentionally blank through no small effort. His eyes narrowed a little, and I realized he was trying to focus on us, vision compromised without the glass lenses that we had failed to give back to him after his conditioning. Still he put forward a brave front, hiding the fear we could see behind his eyes. The frame we'd previously latched him to we had changed to a platform, still with restraints, and it sat horizontal in the center of the room, much like a human operating table.

I nodded to Mr. Wall, who stepped forward without hesitation, planting the foot of his host body against Schreber's calf with great force. He cried out as the bone cracked, collapsing to the floor hard, gasping in pain as two of us hauled him back to his feet to him by his arms and the lip of the table pressed against his thighs.

"This is what will happen next," I said to him. "We will cause you pain, we will torture you, and then we will rape you again, yes? So we ask you again. Will you concede to our request?"

For a moment I thought he'd give in. Hoped. He had proven himself stronger than all the others, and it would do us no good to damage him beyond use in an effort to force his agreement. But Schreber merely drew a deep, shuddering breath, then spat a wad of saliva onto my cheek.

There was fight in him still, then. I wiped the disgusting liquid from my cheek calmly, then backhanded him across the face hard enough that he staggered in our restraint, blood trickling from his nose. "We will take that as a no, then?"

"Go to hell," he hissed, eyes narrowed, cold and hard. "Do what you want to me, I will not yield. You're just savages. Your technology has not advanced you. If you are dying then you fucking deserve it!"

I backhanded him again just on the principle of what he'd said, driving his teeth into his still ragged bottom lip, drawing blood again. Then I took a tool from the folds of my leather robes, a dagger, razor sharp, fashioned when we began our experiments long ago to invoke the greatest fear response in our prey. The blade was half retracted, the hilt closed around the razor sharp blade, and it sprung forward with a satisfying shiver of metal on metal. Schreber jerked back reflexively, which we regarded with interest. "This blade is not for you," I explained to him, stepping closer. "Though perhaps you should know what it feels like, yes? How sharp it is?" I darted forward before he could react, slashing a shallow crescent into his skin from his hairline to the corner of his eyelid, blood welling scarlet against pale skin in its wake.

Stepping back even as he was still gasping in pain, I gave a sharp motion towards the others, who moved forward with one of the other humans. This one was female, blonde with pale eyes like Schreber, hardly older than the man himself. "Where shall we start with her? A hand, perhaps? A finger?"

"Don't hurt me," she gasped, twisting in our grasp, trying to pull away. "I promised I'd help you! I promised I'd do whatever you wanted!"

"You gave in too easily," I replied to her, watching her calmly. "You failed. You lack the fortitude and strength of will we seek." I seized her wrist as we held tightly to her shoulders, ignoring her struggles and cries, flicking my blade to slice off the end of one digit. We held fast to her wrist even as she screamed and half collapsed. I looked back up to meet Schreber's horrified gaze as I lopped off another finger, then another. "Do you agree now? She is suffering because of your refusal, yes. She will die because of your refusal. We will continue this daily until you give in. Twice as many each day, doctor. We will make you watch as they suffer." Dropping the mangled remains of her hand, we hauled her up, and I carved the blade in a neat line along the side of her face before pushing my fingers into the gash, grasping the slippery fold of skin and starting to pull. The woman screamed and then went limp and silent, useless, so I slashed her throat, blood spurting crimson, spilling over her clothes. "Bring the other one here."

This one was male, a man we had just started to test, with dark curly hair and eyes that were a particularly unique shade of green for humans. "Where should we start with him? The eyes, yes?"

"Don't give in to them," the man hissed, trying to struggle out of our grasp. "Don't do it!" He jerked back unexpectedly as the tip of my blade nicked one eyelid, but before I could continue Schreber cried out.

"I'll do it! Don't hurt him. Don't hurt anyone else. Please. I'll do it. Anything you ask." His breath was hitched, and the other two released him, leaving him to cling to the edge of the table in an effort to support his weight, shuddering. The wound on his scalp dripped down his face with the blood from his nose, staining the formerly pristine white of his shirt. "Please."

One of the others brought a syringe to me, pre-prepared in anticipation of this moment. "If you agree to this you are in it for good, doctor. No changing your mind. If you start these experiments for us and then do anything at all to sabotage them it will end very badly, yes? We will have to exterminate all the subjects and start fresh. The same will happen, we think, if you choose to take your own life. Do you understand?"

"Yes," he whispered, still shaking. "Yes, I understand. You have my word."

"Don't do this," The other man begged, one eye clenched shut against the trickle of blood from the nick in his eyelid. We Tuned away the wound with a thought and took him away, out to await a new identity, just as with the rest of the humans we'd stolen. As we dragged him away I held out the syringe to the doctor.

"This is your first task, yes? Drive the syringe into the center of your forehead and press the plunger. We cannot allow the risk of your human memories to impact the experiments in any form. This will leave your skills in tact, doctor. It will erase everything else. Everything from before you came here."

For a long moment Schreber stared down at the syringe in my hand, still trembling. "You want me... to erase my own identity."

"Simply the task you will be performing from now on. Take the syringe, doctor. We have been more than patient with you, yes? Do as we ask now. No more disobedience."

He took the syringe with trembling fingers, holding it helplessly, his breath in broken sobs. Then he drove it into his mind as we had instructed, cry harsh and broken as he pulled the trigger.

I looked up to the mask above the consensus, its face splitting down the middle to reveal the glowing clock of green glass behind it. The heartbeat of the city. Mr. Book's voice filled the room. "We have our key. Let the experiments commence."

 

***

 

After the disaster that was John Murdoch, I expected to die. I. Myself. I'd spent hours warring with my mind - reveling in the taste of individuality while still being a part of the whole. But when Murdoch reconfigured the machine, when he killed Book, all of a sudden everything went quiet. I expected it to be the death I was anticipating, my mind finally rejecting the imprint I'd received.

As I staggered through the city, blinking in the blinding brightness of the sunlight Murdoch had created, I slowly began to realize that I wasn't facing death after all.

I found a few others of our kind as the days passed, stuck on the surface of the city. Were there more alive down below? I didn't know. Without being able to access the machines I couldn't focus my Tuning abilities enough to open the pathways that lead to our domain underneath. I gathered the ones that were still living into the basement of a building that I knew was unused, and they followed my instruction without complaint - they were disoriented, lethargic, and a few simply fell asleep and never woke up. The Murdoch imprint that I thought would bring my death had, apparently, saved me. The rest of my kind were not so lucky.

Finally, not knowing what else to do, I went to find the doctor.

When I arrived at Schreber's office I found another of my kind already there, apparently seeking the same thing I was, slumped in a waiting room chair. "Mr. Hand. We can't hear the others," he said, eyes wide with a very human kind of fear. "Where are the rest of us?"

"There is no more we or us," I said simply. "We becomes I. Individuals. We have become severed from our mind, yes. From each other. We have found the individuality that we so desperately sought to understand in the humans."

"We don't understand."

"You will in time," I replied, feeling a sudden affection - how strange, these human emotions! - and touching his face. Then I knocked on the doctor's office door.

When the door opened the doctor regarded me calmly, with only a shadow of the old fear I'd become so used to in him. He kept the door half closed; not welcoming, but not turning me away. "Mr. Hand. I suppose you've come... to punish me for what I have done?" He'd never quite become familiar with the patterns and spacing of the English language, but his speech was a little smoother now. Relaxed, perhaps, with fear set aside.

"I have come to request your help," I replied. "You have damaged my kind irreparably, yes? Even though you gave your word that you would aid us."

Schreber nodded slowly. "That is true. Pain subdues a man, humiliation bows him. You may use fear to dominate, to make someone bend to your will. But it does not ever buy loyalty. This was your mistake. I waited for John for a very long time. There was not a day when I did not... plan towards an end such as this."

"So you sentence us to death, then."

Schreber shook his head. "I will not allow you to control this city... or its people. But perhaps we can reach an agreement. Something mutually beneficial. First tell me what you would like me to do."

I paused for a moment, still not entirely used to my thoughts being completely my own, to not being able to access the wealth of knowledge and thought that was our group mind. "Some of us have survived. Perhaps more underneath the city, yes? But we are disconnected. We no longer share memories or thoughts. It seems that the imprint you gave me has allowed me to adjust to independent thought. The others are not so lucky. Many have died already. I need you to create imprints for the rest."

Schreber gave a slight nod at the words, though it was merely acknowledgement, not agreement. "Wait here, please."

He stepped away from the door but left it half open, descending the stairs down into the middle of his office. The maze I remembered had been removed in favor of a large table, and I could see files and papers piled on it - mostly our own records. There was another man with him, standing behind the table. Dark curly hair and a voice like silk. John Murdoch. The reason for our failure. He put a hand on Schreber's arm as they spoke in low voices, his attitude towards our doctor gentle and familiar.

Schreber shook his head, voice stronger, audible. "What I have done was not with the intent of genocide, John. They pose no danger to us like this. I will not entertain the idea of eradicating them."

Murdoch nodded amicably. "I don't particularly want that either, but they can't stay in the city. I can't chance that they will regain their abilities and take over. Protection of the city is my first priority."

From the way that he spoke, the way his hand hadn't left Schreber's arm, I wondered a little if that wasn't his only top priority. Schreber smiled, warm and unforced, just as familiar. "I understand. Perhaps we can reach a solution together. Come with me."

Murdoch followed him, looking up at me as they neared the office door. "Mr. Hand."

I gave a nod. "Mr. Murdoch."

He didn't waste time. "I want to take the city back to earth. Do we have the ability to get back?"

"With the right navigational programming, yes. The city can move anywhere."

"Right. Here's my offer, then. Show me how to take us home and leave the city peaceably, and Daniel and I will help you in return with whatever you need to survive."

I nodded slowly. "We will need a ship. I can help you create it. We will need imprints, all of us who still survive. I will trust the doctor to design their nature, yes? And before we leave I will need to attempt to reproduce, because the success of it will depend on our needs going forward. Are you agreeable to this?"

Murdoch raised one eyebrow. "I thought you'd lost the ability to reproduce?"

"It is possible that the problem has been solved. We shall see."

He glanced to the doctor, who gave a little nod. Then he looked back to me. "All right. I will take you at your word this one time only. But if any one of you makes any move to try and regain control of this city I will do whatever is necessary to protect it. And if you ever touch Daniel again I will personally rip off your prick and shove it down your throat."

I was beginning to understand things like his passion now, understand these strange human emotions. Perhaps in time I could even overcome this feeling of betrayal and pride; enough to admit that Schreber had, after all, been right about the nature of the experiments all along. "Understood, Mr. Murdoch. You have my word.”

~~~~


End file.
